The First shall be... First?

Seeing the Wood AND the Trees

One of the challenges with a long sermon series is that we can lose sight of where we are in the bigger picture. Amos is not just constantly pronouncing doom and gloom. He is building an argument, leading us somewhere. And in chapter 6, he lands hard on the leaders, speaking over them not another angry rant but a lament.

The chapter naturally falls into two halves. The first part, verses 1 to 7, is another funeral song, like last week’s passage. The second, verses 8 to 14, is what scholars call an oath-oracle, when God says, "That thing I warned you about? It’s happening." Or as we might say today: mess around and find out.

In Amos’ day, the question should have been, “How do we remain obedient in an age where the priority is comfort and convenience?” That is not a bad question for us either.

I was at an event recently that left me frustrated. The speaker, a headteacher, proudly told us that when children came to look round, their priority was to tell them, “Here, every child will succeed.” Then, on the very next slide, he told us that smartphones were destroying children’s mental health. Now, I don’t know about you, but it feels like we are missing the point somewhere. Maybe it is not the thing which is the problem, but the world we see through them.

When prophets like Amos challenge our comfort, our instinct is often to blame the prophet. It is not us who are the problem, it is Amos for pointing it out. But maybe, just maybe, the problem is not the prophet or the phone, but what is being revealed when we see ourselves reflected in it.

The Funeral Song (Amos 6:1–7)

Amos starts straight out of the gate: “Woe to you who are at ease in Zion.” He is aiming at the national elite, the comfortable, the secure, the successful. The ones people look up to and say, they have made it. They are the kind of people who symbolise everything we are told to aspire to today: stability, confidence, wealth.

But Amos refuses to recognise their status. He exposes it. It reminds me a little of an influencer walking into a restaurant and demanding free food, saying, “Don’t you know who I am?” God does know, and that is exactly the problem. He sees through the polish and finds pride sitting at the heart of the nation.

In verse 2, Amos takes us on a little geographical tour: Calneh, Hamath, and Gath, cities that Israel had boasted of surpassing. The prophet’s point is not to test their geography, but to give perspective. He is deflating the national ego, helping them see that what they thought was greatness is really just a bubble about to burst.

Then in verse 3, he says, “You have pushed far away the evil day.” In other words, you have postponed reality. They used religious language to hide from judgment, making prophecies and forecasts, pretending all was fine. “Not today. Not this week.” But the day would come.

And isn’t that familiar? We do something similar when we talk about the god of the algorithm. We act as if this digital power determines blessing and curse, who is seen and who is forgotten, and we serve it by feeding it what it wants.

At its worst, this idolatry shows up in dark corners of the internet, in what people call the manosphere, where voices like Andrew Tate use biblical language to justify selfishness and dominance. You might have seen the recent Netflix drama Adolescence. It paints a haunting picture of this world, where verses like Ephesians 5 are twisted to justify control, where religion becomes a prop for power.

One commentator described it perfectly: “Men who want to feel important are drawn in because they are told, ‘This is what God wants, and you don’t have to do anything except be a man.’” Religion gets co-opted not for the worship of God but for the worship of self.

Amos saw the same thing. Ivory couches, bowls of wine, fine oils, endless music, the performance of luxury while the world outside breaks apart. But one line cuts through the noise:

“You are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.”

If you remember one thing from this sermon, let it be that.

“You are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.”

“Joseph” is family language. It takes us back to that story in Genesis, where Joseph wept in a pit while his brothers sat down to eat. Amos says, “That is you.” Comfort has anaesthetised compassion. Wealth has drowned out weeping. It is what comfort always does, it muffles the cries we do not want to hear.

And so, in verse 7, comes the pivot: “You who call yourselves first will be the first into exile.” Those who claimed to be the best will discover what being first really means when God acts. The party that drowned out Joseph’s cry will fall silent.

This is not divine pettiness. It is moral logic. Houses built on worship of self cannot stand.

Hearing without doing. Religion without repentance. Comfort without compassion. Sand.

So we ask: Where has comfort dulled my grief? Whose cry have I tuned out? Where am I insisting on being first?

The Oath (Amos 6:8–14)

Then Amos moves from funeral song to divine oath: “I abhor the pride of Jacob,” says the Lord. The diagnosis is clear: pride. Pride that builds palaces and policies around itself. Pride that mistakes God’s patience for approval.

God does not oppose the proud because he is touchy. He opposes them because pride unbuilds the world he loves. Pride disconnects us from reality, from justice, from each other, until all that is left is rubble.

Then Amos paints a horror story. Ten men in one house, all dead. One survivor crawls to the back, whispering through the darkness: “Is anyone left?” “No one.” “Hush. Do not mention His name.”

The people who once stamped God is with us on their coins now whisper, “Do not say His name.” That is the outcome of pride, alienation so deep that even prayer feels dangerous.

And when verse 11 says, “God will shatter the great house into fragments and the small house into bits,” it is not just about buildings. It is about societies. When palaces fall, cottages rattle. Leadership carries others with it, for good or for ill.

Then Amos gets playful again with absurd questions: “Do horses run on rocks? Do oxen plough there?” Of course not. It is nonsense. But that is the point. So is a society that turns justice bitter and righteousness sour.

They even boast about their victories, Lo-Debar, which literally means Nothing, and Karnaim, which means Strength. They brag about winning Nothing through their own Strength. Pride always writes the story so we are the heroes and God is just a background character.

And so, verse 14: “From Lebo-Hamath to the Wadi Arabah.” From the far north to the far south. Total defeat. The map of their pride becomes the map of their downfall.

From Amos to Now: Algorithmic Complacency

So what about us? Amos’s world was built on complacency. Ours is built on algorithms, systems designed to soothe, predict, and personalise our every desire.

The algorithm does not ask us to act. It just wants us to scroll. It flatters us with choice while quietly discipling us into passivity. It convinces us that ease is the goal and that attention, compassion, or repentance are too costly.

We are lulled into a kind of digital drowsiness. It is not that we rebel against God, it is that we let the system decide what matters for us. We stop hearing, stop noticing, stop grieving.

If Amos were here today, he might say, “You have postponed the evil day with your personalised feed.”

So how do we follow Christ in an algorithmic age? The theologian Kate Ott talks about ethical hacking, creatively disrupting the systems that make us complacent. For us, that means hacking the habits that numb our hearts, retraining ourselves for attention, compassion, and justice, for Jesus.

Ethical Hacks for Disciples

1. Hack Complacency - Recover Attention. The leaders of Israel were “at ease,” postponing the day of reckoning. Our screens do something similar. They soothe and outrage us in equal measure, keeping us always in the present, never reflecting. So maybe we need a kind of digital Sabbath. Not as nostalgia, but as resistance. Set the phone aside and ask, “Who am I not seeing? Whose cry have I missed?” Complacency is the sleep of the soul. Attention is how we wake up.

2. Hack Indifference - Recover Compassion. Amos saw people lying on ivory beds while their neighbours broke. What might that look like for us? Maybe it is the comfort of our routines, our church habits. Perhaps we can run a “visibility audit” on our community. Who is missing from our posters, our conversations, our services? Whose stories are not represented? Compassion begins by noticing.

3. Hack Absurdity - Recover Righteousness. Amos says turning justice bitter is as absurd as sprinting horses over boulders. So let us practise moral imagination. Let us make sure our words, our meetings, our ministries reflect a kingdom that values people over image. Every act of justice, however small, chisels the world back into God’s shape.

4. Hack Isolation - Recover Hope. When crisis came, Amos says, the people were silent and alone. Pride isolates; obedience gathers. How might we use our homes, our church spaces, our skills to serve others? Teaching, cooking, mentoring, small acts that remind us: we are builders together, not spectators alone.

5. Curate Your Online Spaces - Recover Control. Every like, share, or comment tells the algorithm what to amplify. So let us share what lifts up Christ and honours others. Let’s confuse the Algorithm! Go into spaces where people look, sound and think differrently from us, celebrate the good, amplify and share the voices of grace.

Each of these hacks is really just another word for discipleship, for hearing and doing, for building on the Rock.

Rebuilding on the Rock

Amos names the leaders first because leaders set the tone. But each of us leads somewhere: in our homes, our workplaces, our friendships. So Amos might tell us four things.

Never be content with things as they are. Complacency breeds decay.

Prioritise care over comfort.

Seek peace with God on His terms, not ours.

And give your triumphs back to God, remembering who gave them in the first place.

And if this all feels heavy, if you see yourself in those ivory beds or endless scrolls, remember this: the gospel does not say you must become granite. It says the Rock has come to you.

On the cross, the only perfectly built house was torn down to our level. And in the resurrection, Jesus rebuilds our foundations. Repentance is not bulldozing your life. It is letting Him build upon it. He does not despise small obediences, He delights in them.

So maybe we could sum up Amos 6 like this:

Complacency. Comfort. Collapse. Correction. Construction.

In verse 1, complacency. In verses 4 to 6, comfort. In verses 7 to 10, collapse. In verses 11 to 13, correction. And by grace, the possibility of reconstruction.

Perhaps this week, name one comfort you could “hack.” One Joseph you could move toward. One act of compassion you could begin.

And so, when the rains fall and the winds rise, and they will, the house built on the Rock will stand.

Amen.